I’ve only seen positive reviews about this book and the fact this book and author has won multiple awards, I picked it up.
Being a person of colour, I do relate with racial discrimination and wanted to read more about it. I personally found the first couple of chapters as well as the author’s introduction quite heartwarming and proceeded ahead with the book.
As I read ahead, I came across incidents of Murder (Eva murders her son in cold blood), accidental death of Chicken (a little boy named Chicken slips off Sula’s hands and drowns in a lake), Sula’s mother abruptly catches fire (the reason is not detailed in the book) and finally Sula sleeps with her best friend’s husband.
All of these incidents left me confused about what’s exactly the point of this story. As the blurb describes it’s a story of friendship, however the friendship doesn’t have any depth and it ends abruptly when one friend goes behind other’s back, THAT TOO JUST AFTER LAUGHING AND HAVING A GOOD TIME TOGETHER.
There were no heartwarming notes to any scene or chapter. All I read was ABRUPT CRIMES ONE AFTER THE OTHER. Which left me quite upset.
Moreover the language used in this book was extremely hard to decipher. There was an instant where the two young girls when they were 12 years old were playing with a tree bark and poking it in the ground. At first read, I could only make out that a sweet child’s play is explained. But when I went online and read interpretation, it was actually them discovering sexual activity with a tree bark)
I really wanted to love this masterpiece, however, I found myself fighting with feelings of outrage and perplexity as I encountered the justified crimes within its pages. While I acknowledge that extraordinary circumstances can drive individuals to extreme actions, I couldn't reconcile with the way the book seemed to provide rationale for acts of violence and cheating, which left me unsettled. I didn’t find Sula heroic enough for Nel to remember her soo intensely towards the end. This comes from someone who know how it feels to have been cheated on by a best friend.
I would have loved if the story was focused on Nel rather than Sula and would have loved Sula regretting her decision to have betrayed her friend and remember her intensely.
Does anyone relate with me? If not, I really want to know what is it about the book which made a 5⭐️ for multiple people. Because I still really want to discover the beauty of the book.
by ScreaminggColors